October 15th was a pretty big "art day" for me: I drove up to Anderson, Indiana, for the Charles Schulz exhibit and then back to Indy to the IMA (Indianapolis Museum of Art) for a docent-lead tour of the new Andy Warhol exhibit that was sponsored by the UIndy Alumni Association (my alma-mater).
That means lotsa driving.
The Schulz exhibit was kind of spur of the moment. I hadn't heard of it until I started playing a Great Pumpkin contest sponsored by Schulz's widow, Jean. My friend Kat said "Hey! While you're spamming our Facebook profiles with Great Pumpkin trivia, you should go check out this exhibit!" Or something like that. I have no idea how she heard of it, but at that point, I had about 4 days left of the exhibit, so Friday it was. It was a sweet lil exhibit: A lot of panels on the wall that explained every main character and some trivia on when they first appeared and all that. From Charlie Brown and Snoopy all the way to Pig Pen and Franklin. They also had a case for each decade that contained memorabilia produced. I actually had one of the items in the 1980's case (a wind-up walking Snoopy) but the rest were pretty rare. Ha, I would know. Between me and my mom, we have a pretty extensive collection. Some of my prides are a 1969 moonlanding Snoopy that she got in her childhood, and another 1969 space Snoopy that I found at an antique store. That's a great combo: Snoopy and Outer Space, my first loves. (Sorry, I'm a nerd).
Anyway, it was a great little sight and a chance to wallow in my "Snoopy heritage" (no really, you guys don't understand: For my entire life, and, I think, most of my mom's, Schulz's creations are like part of the family, as engrained as language. In fact, a Snoopy something is brought up in nearly all of our phone conversations). Art-wise, Schulz's work is basic. It's round, big-headed kids with complexes and their free-wheeling, imaginative dog. I'm convinced he's one of the great philosophers of our time (you know, because all the ones they quote in texts and classes were dead long before I was born...so that's the time frame I'm looking at). There was just a way of looking at things to their simplicity that he possessed and it showed through into his very ink-lines. They had some panels up from each decade, and it was interesting to see how much his style changed. Apparently, for merchandise, he insisted throughout his life that merchandisers use the style of the moment, the most recent, and not any of the 'retro' styles. Which is interesting, given that there was an entire line of "60 Years of Peanuts" on sale last year that delved very deep into the retro styles (I'm partial to 50's Snoopy: Those big ears are so cute!).
He took great pride in his lines and his lettering and it showed. He felt the true art was in the lettering and took great pains to get it just right.
Quick drive in rush hour back to Indy...
"Andy Warhol Enterprises." This man was a business man. In fact, both artists of the day were very adept businessmen. To Andy Warhol, business was the art form.
The tour was a very neat experience. The docent (basically a well-informed museum tour guide) pretty much told us the same stuff that was written on the plaques on the wall, but you don't get the opportunity to ask the plaques questions. Our docent lead us to the final room first: Andy Warhol's silkscreened self-portraits in the twilight of his life. The centerpiece of the room was a gigantic Warhol head (wearing his "scary wig") in turquoise with black. The thing had to be at least 9 feet tall. This was the man. Rewind back to the beginning: This was his life.
Dude apparently had a shoe fetish. This worked out well given that his first job was drawing advertisements for a New York shoe company. He was the child of immigrants, born and raised in Pittsburgh and his father, a coal miner, died when he was young. He was a "momma's boy" because he was sickly and she took care of him. They were also dirt poor. Warhol spent his adult life chasing the almighty dollar, and I guess he caught it, since, when he died, he was worth $200 million. Yeah.
He literally chased it as well: There was an entire room devoted to his dollar bill drawings. For most of his career, at least as shown by the exhibit, he searched out ways to mass produce his art work, thereby increasing his chances to earn more dollars. His early shoe drawings were drawn on some imprintable paper, so that he could rub ink on them and mass produce many many shoes. This also added an uneven, squiggly, quality to his drawings, so that no two were exactly alike. As you move through the exhibit, you see him start to perfect his technique, eventually settling on the silkscreening. But with the dollar room, it was explained that he hand-drew those, because trying to silkscreen-replicate the US dollar was walking to close to the line of counterfitting, and no one wanted that. Also, an interesting note: He loved his mother's handwriting. If he needed lettering done, he let her do it, with her Old-World style of writing, and her iffy spelling (On one if his dollars, she misspelled United States as United Staes). He loved the imperfections and kept them in.
There were crates with logos of companies all over them, Del Monte, Coca-Cola, Brillo, and, of course, Campbell's Soup. One of the Campbell's boxes was a work in progress, each side showing more of the evolution of the work: Sketched cans, letter-painted cans, red parts filled in. More mass-producing. I asked the docent how he didn't get in trouble with the companies for their copyrighted logos, and he said the companies looked at it as free publicity by a well-known artist. Must have worked: Here I am a month later and can list all of those in the exhibit!
They had his pink and orange (with green grass) silkscreened flower painting. And they explained to us The Factory. By this point in his life, Warhol was doing well enough and was in demand enough to have bought this old warehouse, called it The Factory, and set up shop. Other artists and musicians worked out of there, it was the home of the Velvet Underground. It was also called The Factory, because he would hold these parties where he would invite all his friends to come over and paint blobs of acrylic onto canvases. They would line these things up all over the floor and the friends would just go at it. Then, after they were dry (and, I assume, the party over) Warhol would go back and silkscreen the black details over the bright colors, tying them all together and turning blobs into flowers, Marilyn Monroe, and Deborah Harry. All that labor, basically paid in the chance to get blitzed or high at a Warhol party. This also explains why sometimes Marilyn would have green hair, or whatever.
...So... Anyone wanna come over and help me mass produce some stuff? I have...Pepsi to offer!
They had a room devoted to his "movies," 3 minutes of someone standing in front of the camera, doing whatever they want (one model refused to blink and just stared). They had a room devoted to his dollar sign drawings (there we go again) and a room with his corporate logos and coverage in magazines (I totally forgot he did the Michael Jackson cover of Time). They had a room with the Debby Harry and Marilyn portraits as well as other people. See, at that time, he made an announcement: He would paint anyone's portrait for 20 grand. Didn't care who, didn't care what they did, as long as they could pony up 20k. My grandfather: "You gotta get a deal like that!" Yeah, no kidding. At this point, it's more like, "Hey! I'll paint anyone's portrait for...$100!" (no really...I will!)
He began to loosen up towards the end of his life, getting away from the xerox-quality copying for looser versions of similar things. He died from complications following gall bladder surgery (they overhydrated him...oops). He also had been shot about 15 years before his death, by a crazed woman that wanted her movie script back. He had lost it, only to be found after his death when they were clearing out his estate. It was in the bottom of a trunk, just kinda placed there and stuff got set on it. Again, oops. He had heart surgery and pain for his last 15 years and he made sure The Factory was less open and, I guess, it scared him. Rightfully so.
It's a cool show, very fun to see his work up close. I never knew that it was acrylics behind that silkscreening. I've never tried silkscreening, and am not really interested in it at this point, but it was cool to see so much done with it. The show is up until January 3, it is definetly worth it to go see.
PS: I haven't posted any pics from either artist, I'm not sure what the rules are and don't want to get in trouble. Feel free to Google any of them, though, they're neat! Or...Go to the IMA and see them in real life!
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